Congress Passes SPACE Act To Support Asteroid Mining

[Fanghawk]

Congress Passes SPACE Act To Support Asteroid Mining

The United States Congress has passed a bill which allows companies to pursue resource gathering missions in outer space.

At this point, it's absolutely clear <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/161160-NASAs-Space-Launch-System-Passes-Design-Test-Fabrication-Can-Start#&gid=gallery_4921&pid=1>humans will soon get back to space exploration missions - the real questions are when and how. Which makes the SPACE Act of 2015 worth paying attention to. This new bill aims to regulate the commercial space industry, address the role of the International Space Station, and allow companies to legally own resources obtained from asteroids. But the most important detail? This bill has passed <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/congress?from_search=1>in the United States' Congress, and just needs to be signed by President Barack Obama to become law.

"Commercial space exploration presents important new opportunities for us all," Senator Ted Cruz said. Cruz is one of the bill's authors and a chairman for the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Science, Space, and Competitiveness.00

The SPACE Act is the first bill to reframe space industry regulations in ten years, so it has quite a bit of ground to cover. For example, Section 1 addresses safety regulations which cover the entire space industry. It also extends American use of the International Space Station until 2024.

But the most significant details are rules for asteroid mining. The SPACE Act effectively grants companies full rights over any resources they acquire from space, but doesn't offer them any claim on property rights. In short, companies own what they find on asteroids, but can't actually develop long-term settlements there. Presumably a separate colonization bill would need to address those matters, which obviously has its own set of unique concerns.

One last matter worth considering is regulation, or more specifically, how there won't be any right away. The SPACE Act gives companies a "learning period" of eight years before the Federal Aviation Administration steps in with its own recommendations. To be fair, space missions take a long time to plan, so you shouldn't expect corporations to rush into space and wage asteroid wars the moment Obama signs this into law. But space companies will probably forge their own policies which the FAA will take into account on Oct. 1, 2023.

While there are still gaps the bill doesn't cover, it's absolutely necessary given how many space exploration companies are itching to go to space. "We've seen a rapid increase in the numbers of space companies," US Representative of Rockledge Bill Posey explained, "and they're developing new technologies every single day, in a race to the stars." So if this bill kicks off a new space race, we could be in for an incredibly exciting decade.

Source: <a href=http://www.techtimes.com/articles/107991/20151118/us-congress-approves-bill-that-could-spur-space-mining-industry.htm>Tech Times

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[Objectable]

There are like a billion Space Enginners jokes Icould make right now

 

[Albino Boo]

To be honest I don't see how the US congress has the authority to grant ownership over any resources that companies acquire from space. They simply don't have jurisdiction over the rest of the solar system to grant anything. Sovereignty would have to be established first.

The cost of returning any significant mass to Earth just this makes uneconomic. Minerals just don't exist in high quantities to make mining worth while. The 15th century voyages of discovery were made on the backs 10,000% profits on investment, that kind of profit isn't there

 

[Jadak]

To be honest I don't see how the US congress has the authority to grant ownership over any resources that companies acquire from space. They simply don't have jurisdiction over the rest of the solar system to grant anything. Sovereignty would have to be established first.

The US Congress having authority depends on you look at it. Obviously it hardly matters in the grand scope of things, but if we're talking about US companies competing with other US companies, then both are subject to US laws and US congress obviously has the authority to dictate what US companies can and can not do.

When you start taking other nations, non-US corporations, or eventual non-Earth based corporations into account, this won't be especially relevant on it's own.

 

[P-89 Scorpion]

To be honest I don't see how the US congress has the authority to grant ownership over any resources that companies acquire from space. They simply don't have jurisdiction over the rest of the solar system to grant anything. Sovereignty would have to be established first.

The cost of returning any significant mass to Earth just this makes uneconomic. Minerals just don't exist in high quantities to make mining worth while. The 15th century voyages of discovery were made on the backs 10,000% profits on investment, that kind of profit isn't there

Anything mined in space belongs to who mined it according to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. You don't own the asteroid but anything you dig out of it is yours. So if an asteroid had something we wanted we could mine it but we couldn't stop others from setting up a mine next door.

 

[Zulnam]

"When deep space exploration ramps up, it'll be the corporations that name everything, the IBM Stellar Sphere, the Microsoft Galaxy, Planet Starbucks.? &#8213; Chuck Palahniuk

 

[JoJo]

It's an encouraging start, this sort of thing ideally should be run by international treaty. I like the idea that the Law of High Seas should apply to space, international waters are very similar in that sense so the same rules could apply: essentially, every spaceship is under the jurisdiction of the flag state it is registered with. This is already effectively the case under the Outer Space Treaty. Any nation has jurisdiction to deal with space pirates etc. There's even an organisation called ISA [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Seabed_Authority] set up to deal with mining in international waters, wouldn't be too hard to replicate that for space mining.

 

[pookie101]

it is kind of weird that countries like the USA and and groups like the UN are trying to regulate the vastness of the cosmos like they own it. i get laws to stop countries say putting nukes into orbit but saying they have the right to rule a colony on mars or an asteroid mining post set up by an independent group is a bit much

frankly if some group with the resources and means set up a permanent colony that refused to recognise any earth governing body there is bugger all anyone could do about it. its not like any government would spend the resources to do anything other than strongly worded UN resolutions

if we do go into space properly its only a matter of time before someone declares independence

 

[9tailedflame]

it is kind of weird that countries like the USA and and groups like the UN are trying to regulate the vastness of the cosmos like they own it. i get laws to stop countries say putting nukes into orbit but saying they have the right to rule a colony on mars or an asteroid mining post set up by an independent group is a bit much

frankly if some group with the resources and means set up a permanent colony that refused to recognise any earth governing body there is bugger all anyone could do about it. its not like any government would spend the resources to do anything other than strongly worded UN resolutions

if we do go into space properly its only a matter of time before someone declares independence

I don't know... I feel like any colony is going to need huge amount of support from earth. Until we can get planets terraformed, which will take a very long time, and will require huge amounts of earth support, supplies are going to be required on a really large scale, making independence largely impossible.

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

This just makes me think of Red Dwarf.

well, this is a good thing for space exploration, find a large enough stock of oil, diamonds, gold etc, we will find cheaper ways of exploring space

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

They keep what they find, but they have to get out there and stake a claim first.

 

[iamzim101]

Anything mined in space belongs to who mined it according to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. You don't own the asteroid but anything you dig out of it is yours. So if an asteroid had something we wanted we could mine it but we couldn't stop others from setting up a mine next door.

Where does it say that?
I read the space treaty and no where in the text does it ever say anything along those lines.

 

[Baresark]

Haha, am I the only one that finds it ridiculous that the US Government is giving anyone permission to harvest resources from the place that is the most outside it's borders than any other place we know of.

it is kind of weird that countries like the USA and and groups like the UN are trying to regulate the vastness of the cosmos like they own it. i get laws to stop countries say putting nukes into orbit but saying they have the right to rule a colony on mars or an asteroid mining post set up by an independent group is a bit much

frankly if some group with the resources and means set up a permanent colony that refused to recognise any earth governing body there is bugger all anyone could do about it. its not like any government would spend the resources to do anything other than strongly worded UN resolutions

if we do go into space properly its only a matter of time before someone declares independence

I don't know... I feel like any colony is going to need huge amount of support from earth. Until we can get planets terraformed, which will take a very long time, and will require huge amounts of earth support, supplies are going to be required on a really large scale, making independence largely impossible.

Except that any corporation is well within it's rights to own all the supplies necessary to support said venture. The US government can't technically take that away from them.

 

[FalloutJack]

To be honest I don't see how the US congress has the authority to grant ownership over any resources that companies acquire from space. They simply don't have jurisdiction over the rest of the solar system to grant anything. Sovereignty would have to be established first.

The cost of returning any significant mass to Earth just this makes uneconomic. Minerals just don't exist in high quantities to make mining worth while. The 15th century voyages of discovery were made on the backs 10,000% profits on investment, that kind of profit isn't there

Interesting that you parallel this to the great journeys of yesteryear when doing inevitably led things to where they are now. True, a great deal of hardship, unfair treatment, and death plagued it all the way through. Nevertheless, this is our history and being this advanced and powerful would not happen without the history we have of going out there and doing stuff. Such is life, no?

OT: My inner reaction...


Though, we really should be trying to pull Helium-3 from the moon, if possible.

 

[Xeorm]

To be honest I don't see how the US congress has the authority to grant ownership over any resources that companies acquire from space. They simply don't have jurisdiction over the rest of the solar system to grant anything. Sovereignty would have to be established first.

The cost of returning any significant mass to Earth just this makes uneconomic. Minerals just don't exist in high quantities to make mining worth while. The 15th century voyages of discovery were made on the backs 10,000% profits on investment, that kind of profit isn't there

Eh, according to the official government site, the relevant portion is:

"Any asteroid resources obtained in outer space are the property of the entity that obtained them, which shall be entitled to all property rights to them, consistent with applicable federal law and existing international obligations."

Which takes into consideration international rights, and helps with some of the "duh" moments in law. It'd be rather bad if companies didn't have any legal right to the materials, because they could be confiscated at any moment by others. I don't see what's wrong with giving companies the legal right to the stuff that they mine.

The costs of returning minerals will go down with time. Plus, the cost is severely decreased if there's no requirement to bring it to the surface. Leaving it in space and building in orbit would be much, much cheaper, as an example.

 

[Strazdas]

The SPACE Act effectively grants companies full rights over any resources they acquire from space, but doesn't offer them any claim on property rights. In short, companies own what they find on asteroids, but can't actually develop long-term settlements there. Presumably a separate colonization bill would need to address those matters, which obviously has its own set of unique concerns.

thats actually quite good in my opinion. companies can mine asteroids but they cannot claim them, so they cannot monopolize the most profitable asteroids.

One last matter worth considering is regulation, or more specifically, how there won't be any right away. The SPACE Act gives companies a "learning period" of eight years before the Federal Aviation Administration steps in with its own recommendations.

translation: companies are given 8 years to bribe FAA.

The cost of returning any significant mass to Earth just this makes uneconomic. Minerals just don't exist in high quantities to make mining worth while. The 15th century voyages of discovery were made on the backs 10,000% profits on investment, that kind of profit isn't there

not necessarily so. minerals that are considered rare on earth can be found in quite large concentrations in space sometimes. of course we may have a problem of a market crash here like when aluminium manufacturing was discovered, but we found great ways to use that to our benefit. the first person to organize the asteroid mining operation is going to be raking in cash.

Except that any corporation is well within it's rights to own all the supplies necessary to support said venture. The US government can't technically take that away from them.

the corporation is under the jurisdiction of the country it is set up in (lets assume US for now). therefore, US govenrment has direct jurisdiction over said company and thus can do whatever the fuck they want with it.

 

[Albino Boo]

Interesting that you parallel this to the great journeys of yesteryear when doing inevitably led things to where they are now. True, a great deal of hardship, unfair treatment, and death plagued it all the way through. Nevertheless, this is our history and being this advanced and powerful would not happen without the history we have of going out there and doing stuff. Such is life, no?

All I'm saying that the past voyages of discovery were not done for noble motives but for vast profits. There simply isn't the money in space to encourage national or private expenditure on space exploration.

Not necessarily so. minerals that are considered rare on earth can be found in quite large concentrations in space sometimes. of course we may have a problem of a market crash here like when aluminium manufacturing was discovered, but we found great ways to use that to our benefit. the first person to organize the asteroid mining operation is going to be raking in cash.

Lets look at the figures. Nasa has just spent $671 million on getting a 65 kg satellite into orbit around Mars. The cost of gold per kg is $34000. So 65x 34000 = 2210000, the cost of the mission is roughly 3 times its weight in gold. Bear in mind that the large asteroids are further away and are not made of solid gold and you have to price in a return trip and atmospheric shielding, you don't make money.

 

[Strazdas]

Lets look at the figures. Nasa has just spent $671 million on getting a 65 kg satellite into orbit around Mars. The cost of gold per kg is $34000. So 65x 34000 = 2210000, the cost of the mission is roughly 3 times its weight in gold. Bear in mind that the large asteroids are further away and are not made of solid gold and you have to price in a return trip and atmospheric shielding, you don't make money.

your calculations are running under flawed assumption.
1. Mining equipment may be cheaper than a space sattelite.
2. For examples sake lets say we use a 65 KG Mining equipment droid. This only means that 65 KG had to go up into space. this is not the mass that is going to go down. the asteroid part being brought down will likely be measured in tons, not kilograms. Landing something may also be cheaper than lifting off, because you only need to counter the gravity enough not to burn the craft up instead of not only countering the gravity completely but also propeling it above that force. you are also allowed to use things like parachutes which are relatively very cheap compared to slowing down using rockets. you can even use the friction of asteroid itself as part of the stopping power.
3. there are quite a lot of asteroids between us and Mars. they just arent all that interesting, or discovered. we actually havent discovered half of asteroids around us. Aiming for smaller asteroids also means you need less energy to mine/propell it.
4. It may be possible to refine the material in space so you would only have to land pure product. Alternatively, moon could be used as a rest stop for a refinery. due to its low gravity and no atmosphere, it is much more easier to land and lift off there.
5. expenses of space operation are currently highly increased due to pretty much every craft being unique and designed as a new project. reusable craft that can be mass produced will be much cheaper and thats whats going to happen if we are going to be mining space.

id be much more worried not about profitability but about mass added to earth. if we add too much mass we may affect the gravity enough to kick earth into spiral orbit towards sun. of course, thats going to take decades if not centuries to do.

 

[immortalfrieza]

5. expenses of space operation are currently highly increased due to pretty much every craft being unique and designed as a new project. reusable craft that can be mass produced will be much cheaper and thats whats going to happen if we are going to be mining space.

To add to this, bills like this one will help incentivize companies to put their resources into inventing and investing in space exploration, therefore drastically decreasing the cost of space exploration across the board and making it safer, more practical, faster, and more reliable at the same time. It's obviously not profitable NOW to mine resources in space, but give it a few decades of dedication it will become so in the future.